A 180-seat theater on H Street NE will host the American Pops Orchestra's intimate tribute to Dolly Parton later this month. The concert, titled “I Will Always Love You,” is set for Saturday, October 24, at 8 p.m. inside the Sprenger Theatre at 1333 H St. NE, with tickets starting at $75.
The show was announced in a report from HillRag, which described the evening as a celebration of Parton's music, generosity, and spirit. Proceeds from ticket sales will go directly toward the American Pops Orchestra's free national children's programming, which the organization says provides kids across the country access to the arts at no cost.
A Lineup Spanning Broadway, Bluegrass and Viral Folk
The guest roster reads like a tour through several corners of American music. Andrew Keenan-Bolger, a two-time Drama League Award nominee who originated the role of Crutchie in Broadway's Newsies and starred as Jesse Tuck in Tuck Everlasting, headlines the theatrical side of the bill, according to the American Pops Orchestra.
Joining him is Suzanne Cox, a Grammy Award winner from the bluegrass group The Cox Family, performing alongside her son, country artist Brandon Ratcliff, following the 2026 release of their joint Mother/Son musical project, as reported by The Bluegrass Situation. Indie-folk singer-songwriter Sarah Gross rounds out the younger generation of performers; she gained national attention after winning NBC's “Battle of the Instant Songwriters” on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon in 2024 and later joined Zach Bryan on stage at Long Island's UBS Arena, per Times News Online.
Vocalist Hilary Morrow, a veteran comedian and actor who has performed with The Second City at the Kennedy Center and appeared in national PBS broadcasts such as Wicked in Concert, also joins the lineup, according to Backstage. Morrow has reportedly appeared as a primary soloist across multiple original American Pops Orchestra productions.
An Orchestra Built to Reach Young Audiences Nationwide
The American Pops Orchestra was founded in 2015 by Maestro Luke Frazier to broaden classical and popular music audiences. It conducts twice-yearly weeklong elementary-school tours; separately, it reached 300,000 students virtually in 2024–25 across all 50 states, according to Luke Frazier Music. The orchestra has reached an estimated 60 million television viewers nationwide and has appeared in over 30 PBS specials, featuring guest stars such as Patti LaBelle, Renée Fleming, and Ariana DeBose.
That national footprint gives the Parton tribute added resonance. Parton's own Imagination Library, founded in 1995, partnered with the District of Columbia Public Library in February 2016 to establish “Books from Birth,” a local literacy initiative that reached its 10th anniversary in February 2026 after delivering over 3.6 million free books to more than 103,000 D.C. children under age five, according to the DC Public Library. Parton originally launched her library program to honor her father, who never learned to read or write.
A Historic H Street Venue With Its Own Revival Story
The Sprenger Theatre sits inside the Atlas Performing Arts Center, an original 1938 Art Deco movie theater on H Street NE that was revitalized and reopened in 2006 through a major restoration spearheaded by philanthropists Jane Lang and Paul Sprenger, per Metro Weekly. Today the Sprenger operates as a flexible black-box space offering an intimate capacity of 180 seated patrons, one of four performance venues inside the multi-space complex, according to The Vendry.
Arts-centered revitalization led by institutions like the Atlas Performing Arts Center helped reduce commercial building vacancies along the H Street NE corridor from 75 percent down to under 5 percent over a two-decade span, Hoodline has previously reported. The corridor now hosts the annual H Street Festival, which draws more than 150,000 visitors each year. Tickets for “I Will Always Love You” are currently available for purchase ahead of the October 24 performance.
